NATO exercise in Hamburg: war game remains undisturbed

In the blink of an eye, around 20 masked people jump onto the street. They light pyros, link arms, shout “back, back” and hold up banners that say “Stop”. The column of armored Bundeswehr vehicles, from which soldiers with assault rifles look out, and police cars, which drives through the south of Hamburg on the night of Thursday to Friday, stops.

What at first glance looks like a somewhat meaningless but well-timed blockade campaign is just an act. The “demonstrators,” as the Bundeswehr calls them, are mostly men over 50 with very short hair, reservists in disguise. They are taking part in the NATO exercise “Red Storm Charlie”, which is taking place in Hamburg from September 24th to 26th – for the third time in a row. On this night, the mock blockade will be the only disruption to the exercise. The attempt by anti-militarist activists to disrupt the column failed because of the police.

However, the Bundeswehr carried out the first day of its “Red Storm” scenario largely as planned, in which it practiced the transfer of soldiers, weapons and vehicles to NATO’s so-called “eastern flank”. This is part of the “Germany Operational Plan,” which regulates how Germany will become a logistical hub in the event of a “NATO alliance” – “a reaction to the worsening security situation in Europe,” as the Bundeswehr’s Territorial Command calls it.

A few hours before the fake blockade, Jürgen Bredtmann, first lieutenant from the Hamburg regional command, is standing on a ferry on the Elbe. He heads press work and accompanies around 30 journalists (5 of them women) who are reporting on the NATO exercise this Thursday evening.

“Red Storm Charlie” is the largest Bundeswehr exercise in a large city. Compared to the “Red Storm Bravo” exercise last year, even more soldiers are involved and there is great media interest. The exercise is called “so that we can all talk about it,” says Bredtmann. Associations with the Red Army are not intended; the name should be more reminiscent of a Sahara or solar storm and illustrate a crisis or interruption.

Bredtmann provides the press with pictures and contacts, such as the nameless soldier from the last car in the column, who sets off from the port area late in the evening and is allowed to say little more than his job: “If a vehicle breaks down, repair it so that the vehicle can continue driving.”

The images that Bredtmann serves to the press include a drone shooting down another drone, helicopters circling with the door open, soldiers riding a ferry across the Elbe in the sunset, soldiers with assault rifles running up and down the quay like on a catwalk and these two military police on the awesome motorcycles.

It's a "balancing act between good pictures and the fact that it's an exercise," says Bredtmann. He emphasizes several times that it is an exercise and not a show, that nothing is being performed just for journalists.

You should be prepared to be disturbed by activists, says Bredtmann. Would one even be happy about a real blockade operation for training purposes? "Well then we would be a little bit out of schedule. But that doesn't matter. Whether we get there at two o'clock or at three or four doesn't really matter."

Of course, Bredtmann says casually, he has no objection to protest as long as it remains peaceful. But he says he thinks the Bundeswehr is the wrong recipient. It's further east. "But you're just not allowed to demonstrate there. And I think it's great that we can demonstrate here that you can be against wars."

The nationwide Rheinmetall Disarmen alliance invited people to days of action against the NATO exercise in Hamburg. “We do not believe in the just war that they are trying to sell to us,” said spokesman Luca Hirsch on Thursday at a press conference in the Old Elbpark, where the activists have set up a “disruption center” with a circus tent and pavilions. The aim of the NATO exercise is to get the population used to war scenarios. You don't want to allow that. “Hamburg cannot be mobilized and does not belong to NATO, but to the people who live here,” said Hirsch.

However, all attempts to block the military convoy failed. A bus with around 100 demonstrators was stopped and detained by the police on the way to the port. Other groups also failed to reach the blockade point or called off the action due to lack of prospects of success.

Only a group of around 70 climate activists from Ende Gelände reached a blockade point in the port on Friday morning and occupied the tracks there for several hours. “Armament and war are further fueling the climate crisis,” criticized spokeswoman Tomke Jansen. Climate justice and antimilitarism are two sides of the same fight. According to a spokeswoman for the Harbor Port Authority, freight traffic was at a standstill for several hours.

The police still draw a positive conclusion from the course of the exercise so far; there have been no security-related disruptions, said a spokesman.

During their days of action, the activists from Rheinmetall Disarmen also relied on the Hamburg left-wing scene and presented a decentralized action concept - so that left-wing groups can initiate actions independently and without consultation, which overall result in a diverse protest. But nothing came.

The reasons for this could - in addition to the extremely high police presence - be that the anti-militarist current within the left movement is in a difficult position. Some leftists support arms deliveries to Ukraine or do not want to join protests against NATO. The Middle East conflict also continues to impact the already fragmented scene. For example, the authoritarian Marxist-Leninist group Young Struggle is part of the Rheinmetall Disarmen alliance. Young Struggle is often excluded from left-wing contexts due to anti-Semitic statements, but can join the anti-militarist scene well.

However, the school strike against conscription, which took place on Friday morning in Hamburg and more than 100 other cities as part of nationwide coordination, was a success. Over 1,500 students protested at Hamburg Central Station against the threat of conscription into the Bundeswehr. An anti-racist demo by Rheinmetall Disarmen at Dammtor was planned for Friday afternoon; further demos are scheduled for Saturday, including protests by the trade unions and the “unshortenable” alliance against the Merz coalition’s social cuts.